A BROTHER and sister who competed in BBC's Race Across the World have been brought closer because of their experience on the show.
Betty, a 25-year-old social media and events manager for a gym in Silsden, and James, a 21-year-old sales consultant from Gargrave, took part in the latest series.
The challenge saw them travel from northernmost Japan to the Indonesian island of Lombok in east Asia without flights or phones.
Just 24 hours and 34 minutes behind the winners, Betty and James arrived in third place.
Reflecting on their travels, Betty said: “I think, coming away from this experience we’ve learned how to communicate better, and we now both have an extra person to lean on if we need it, it’s amazing.”
Across the eight-part series, the four partnerships were pushed to their mental and physical limits as they travelled 15,000km over 50 days, crossing six seas and eight borders along the way.
Betty and James - who are barely in touch as adults - wanted to share the experience of a lifetime.
By the end of the programme, the pair had grown closer.
It was an emotional time for the siblings as Betty opened up about her diagnosis of Mayer Rokitansky Küster Hauser (MRKH) syndrome.
MRKH affects 1 in every 5,000 women, according to the NHS.
Also known as Rokitansky syndrome, MRKH is a rare congenital disorder that mainly affects the reproductive system.
It could mean women are either born without a vagina and uterus, or the vagina and uterus fails to develop fully.
"As a young woman, you're kind of told 'you're going to marry, you're going to have a family'," she said in the penultimate episode of Race Across the World.
"From a young age, when that's taken away from you, it does put doubts in your mind and doubts in your purpose as a person."
Betty was diagnosed with MRKH shortly after she turned 16.
She doesn’t have a uterus or womb and only has one kidney as a result of her condition.
On the show, Betty told her brother: “My condition, I do believe it has made me have this mindset of being negative and not really liking the person I am.
“Me and you have never had a conversation about it. It’s made me develop a lot of the negative attributes I have, overthinking, wanting to feel like I’m in control. I felt like at 16 something was taken away from me that I couldn’t control. When you’ve been saying, ‘everything happens for a reason’, I can’t believe that.”
James was so moved by the conversation that he asked for a hug from the production team.
“To hear that was so tough,” he told the crew.
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